Attractant for insects, particularly for the japanese beetle



United States,

chemicals Patented pa. 9, 1926.

"UNITED STATES; PATENT: OFFIC/E.

LOREN :B. SMITH AND EDWARD AVERY RICHMOND, or RfvERToN, Arm PETER a. van S DER EULEN, on NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW

ME TS, To THE rEorL OF THE UNITED JERSEY, ASSIGNORS, BY MESNE ASSIGN- STATES.

A TTRAcTA NT FOR INsEc'Ts; rAIiTIcuLAnLY on T E JAPAN SE BEETLE.

No Drawing.

' Application filed August 12, 1925v Serial No 49,844.

(GRANTED UNDER THEAcT or Manor; 3, iasa; zzs'ra'r. m.

To all whom it may concern.

'Be it known that we, LonEN B. SMITH, EDWARD AVERY .RICHMOND, both of Riverton, New Jersey, and PETER A. VAN nun MEULEN, of New Brunswick, New Jersey, citizens of the United States of America,

and employeesof the Department of-Agriculture of the United States of America,"

have invented a new and -useful,.Attr'actant for Insects, Beetle, fication.

This application is made under the act of March 3, 1883, chapter 143 (22 S'tat. 625) and the invention herein described and claimed may be used by the Government of the United States or any of'its oflicers or employees in the prosecution of work for the Government, or by any other person of-the without payment to us of any royalty thereon. v

Ithas long been recognized that insects are attracted to flowers or foliage-by certain of which the following is a speciod-oriferous constituents given off by the plants in minute quantities but yetsufficient to enable the odor to be noticed by the in-jsects. The discovery and invention which forms the subject of this application has to do with certain' odoriferous constituents derived from plants or made synthetically, applied either singly or in certain combinations, to be described hereinafter, in' such a as to attract insects nese beetles 'Our experiments have shown that .many will either attract or occasionally repel insects but there are a few substances or combinations of substances which have a and particularly J aparemarkably strong attracting efiect. It; is

the purpose of this application to disclose particularly one such preparation and to describe several methods for its application and to cover this preparation and its combinations in this patent application.

We have found that the compound geraniol .by itself and in various combinations produces an odor which is extremely attractant to the Japanese beetle. In fact we have been able to'show that beetles which are feeding on foliage and fruits whichthey infest particularly heavily because of the Part'icularlyfor the J apanesev from valuable fruit'trees or .poisons, stomach poisons, other means which, even though they may manner.

, geraniol from rates into the air,'t-he rate ofevaporation e-\ vicinity by an application of a small amount of geraniol.

The -rcsult has been that in certain'instances an extremely high concentration of beetles has been drawn into a restricted area by this-process, drawing them.

away from such foliage-and fruit as that of ripening peaches or ripeningapples. It is obvious that such a result has great value, in that the beetles can be largely removed other foliage, concentrated upon foliage which is of little or no economic value, and can there be de stroyecl by the application of contact injure theplants of littleeconomic importance, will cause a yery great destructionof beetles. It will be apparent from the example cited, that thismode of treatment greatly increases the effectiveness of existing methods of control. i I As examples of specific methods for the application, of geraniol we -may *cite' theapplication directly as a liquid applied by means of an atomizer, as-an emulsion in water produced inv any one of a number of well known ways-such as emulsification by meansof asoap, the geraniol being either as such or dissolved in a suitable substance not miscible with water... Again, it may :be applied upon a suitable solid carrer such as finely divided charcoal or kieselguhr. In

this'form the geraniol and carriercan' be suspended in water and applied by the usual spray methods. It may also e incorporated in such a carrier as charcoal or kieselguhr or other substances of such a nature-as will hold geraniol, and the preparation ap- I It w ll be evident that with any of the methods cited there is produced plied as a dust.

upon the foliage asource of the substance which it gradually eva 0- ing largely determined by the nature of the carrier .and by its-physmal condition. "For example, a coarsely ground carrier exposmg less surface than a finely divided one will give off geraniol vmore slowly than the fine one. It is evident that geraniol in any fumigation or of these combinations mentioned may be incorporated in insecticides, sprays or dusts.

In cases in which these spray methods produce too rap'd a volatilization. of the geraniol which may occur on a windy day, for example, the geraniol can be applied by hanging in a selected locality acontainer which holds the geraniol and which is arranged in such a, manner as will produce a slow volatilization of the geranfol either by a small opening in the container or a suitable wick or other method which will be apparent to the averageioperator of spraying or dusting operations.

There is yet another method of application which we have found very effective.

We have incorporated. geraniol. in substances which the insects will eat. For exgreen.

ample bran mixed with molasses, such mixtures -act as baits in, drawing the insects to them. The baits may be either as mentioned or they may have added to them a poison. such as arsenate of lead or Paris The baits may be placed in the open,

thus drawing insects into restricted localities. A more satisfactory procedure consists in placing the poisoned or unpoisoned bait in a'suita'ble trap so constructed as'to permit the insects to enterthe trap but not leave it. Field experiments have shown that a small trap will inthe course of a day collect thousands of beetles from an intested orchard. It is evident that the geraniol may be introduced into these traps either as a liquid or incorporated in a suitable carrier.

It is not essential that the geraniol be in a pure form, when applied in any of these Ways. There are many commercial products which contain geraniol as one constituent, and it is our purpose to include such products in this application.

specific examples of such oils, which produce attraction, we have found that sassafras oil (Nat), palmarosa oil, cltronella oil, lemon-grass oil, geranium oils and rose oils',' 'etci, are of value. It is understood that we do not/limit ourselves to the particular oils mentioned, but include all products containing a" sufficient amount of the essential constftuent gfieraniol, to produce the desired result, name y, an attraction of the insects.

We claim all As V -1, An lnsect attractant, comprising geraniol as the active ingredient.

2. An 'insecticide comprising geraniol and a poisonous constituent. 3. A compos'tion of matter attractive to 'insects comprising geranio-l on an absorbent carrier from which the geraniol is slowly volatilized.

. LOREN B. SMITH.

EDWARD AVERY RICHMOND. A. VAN DER MEULEN. 

